Executive Creative Director, Senior Director

Credit Karma is looking for an Executive Creative Director, Senior Director to join our in-house Creative team, which works on everything from emails and digital creative to social video and TV. The Executive Creative Director is responsible for driving and continuously elevating the overall creative expression of Credit Karma’s brand, as well as guiding messaging and brand consistency across all of our exciting product areas and key initiatives. Reporting to Credit Karma’s Chief Marketing Officer, this role requires a strategic people leader who is plugged into the business, with a demonstrated ability to use data to inform creativity and boldly lead our talented creatives. They will lead multiple verticalized creative teams, and partner with agencies, to guide the creation of eye-opening, thought-provoking work that firmly cements Credit Karma’s place as the one-stop shop to make financial progress. Additionally, this leader is actively learning the rapidly changing marketing technology landscape (i.e. natural language processing tools, and other AI tools) and is passionate about crafting a vision for how our creative team can best learn and leverage it to create ethical and effective marketing to our members.

What you’ll do:

• Partner directly with our Senior Director of Production, Brand and Creative Strategy to manage all things related to creative & brand development
• Set direction for the creative team as a whole, developing a vision for how creative will deliver value to Credit Karma
• Manage a team of roughly 40 Creative Directors, Designers, Copywriters and Art Directors working across 7 verticals across all aspects of creative: Email, Digital, TV, Social, Radio, etc…
• Mentor, coach and inspire creative talent. Lead with empathy and inclusivity, and actively nurture career development for all team members.
• Be a vocal and visible advocate for your diverse team, taking actions to ensure everyone is included and represented
• Set the creative bar (we like it high) for the brand and deliver great work that works
• Directly impact business outcomes (driving direct response, changing perception, increasing usage, etc) by influencing how creative is best deployed and evaluated in each channel
• Advocate for the department as whole—be a vocal leader for your brand vision and help the organization (functional partners up through C-suite leadership) see the power of creative as a business driver 
• Build relationships with cross-functional partners and performance marketers to understand key business problems and bring a strong perspective on how creative can help solve
• Scale creative ideas up or down as needed to nail the brief while staying on budget and accomplishing business goals

What’s great about the role:

• You will be managing and mentoring a very talented team of creatives with a mix of backgrounds from both in-house and advertising agencies
• Work at a mission-driven company, where your creativity could help over 120 million people improve their financial situations--there aren’t many opportunities in marketing that are this rewarding
• Unique opportunity to make your mark on an entire brand, further defining and pushing boundaries to make Credit Karma mean more to people 
• It’s an exciting time with many new game-changing products being introduced, so there are plenty of interesting creative problems to sink your teeth into
• Direct access to the Chief Marketing Officer at all times to bounce ideas off of

Minimum Basic Requirement:

• 10+ years of experience as Creative Director, including at least 2 years of Creative leadership experience in-house 
• At least 5+ years of experience as either a Group or Executive Creative Director
• Experience leading and developing a team of Copywriters, Designers and Art Directors at all experience levels, with direct engagement in their career growth
• A proven track record of creating brand-defining and business-driving work across channels, including TV, email, digital and social 
• A proven track record working on direct response, highly measurable digital campaigns

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Deep passion for defining the future of personal finance
• A leader who’s made their mark and is now interested in investing in developing the next generation of creative leaders
• Is staying current on the most recent trends in artificial intelligence and how creative can best capitalize on progression of technology
• Strong storytelling skills, with the ability to get the heart of why a creative idea is relevant
• A solid understanding of performance marketing with experience creating and testing direct response content, then using data to inform iteration and optimization 
• An inclusive team management style based on empathy and understanding; you enjoy being a coach
• Ideally has worked and had success in a crowded/commoditized category
• Diverse experience across different media channels and a POV of how various creative touch points work together within a marketing ecosystem to drive the goal at hand
• An understanding of Inclusive Marketing principles with experience leading teams in developing creative that represents and resonates with diverse audiences 
• Exceptional ability to build strong cross-functional relationships with Marketing, Product, Social and Legal partners. Must have high emotional intelligence and strong powers of persuasion
• Strong organizational acumen, with the ability to quickly learn how to get things done within CK systems and structure. Experience setting priorities, problem solving, multitasking and working in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment
• Excellent communication skills and can be a dynamic speaker in front of reporters, peers and leaders
• All the talent without the ego. We really live by our company values here - Hope, Ownership, Progress and Empathy (H.O.P.E.)

Pay Transparency Notice: Credit Karma’s mission of championing financial progress for all starts from within. That’s why we implemented role-based compensation, which ensures people who are in the same role receive the same pay with variations for geographic location only. It’s all part of a more comprehensive DEI strategy that helps level the playing field. The base salary range for this role is $329,688 to $336,914, plus equity and benefits.